1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to technologies for managing a network relay apparatus in a network operation.
2. Description of the Related Art
In a conventional network operation, network relay apparatuses are monitored in accordance with SNMP (A Simple Network Management Protocol) defined by RFC (Request For Comments) 1067 published by IETF (The Internet Engineering Task Force) to notify a network manager of a fault such as a disconnection of a link, if any, by SNMP, prompting the network manager to deal with the fault. There are few SNMP-based setting changing means.
Also, means for setting configuration data into a network relay apparatus uses Telnet defined by RFC854 and HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol) defined by RFC1945 for transfer protocols, and uses a human interface such as CLI (Command Line Interface) and GUI (Graphical User Interface) to reflect the set contents to the apparatus.
Therefore, for dealing with a fault in the conventional network operation, the network manager generally analyzes possible causes for the fault, devises appropriate means for recovering the network from the fault, logs in a network relay apparatus, which has been affected by the fault, to change settings, and recovers the network from the fault.
Also, JP-A-2004-193988 describes a system which comprises an initial server and a user server. The initial server notifies the address of the user server based on a router identifier, while the user server distributes and sets configuration data corresponding to the identifier, and notifies a contact address or the like of the user of a detected fault in response to a failure in periodical delivery of the latest configuration data or in response to the absence of a response to a monitoring packet.